Cardboard ‘instant room’ for students marketed at $149

A Canadian design company is seeking crowdfunding for a plan to create a room’s worth of furniture in a single box for a cost of $149.

The idea of Our Paper Life is to provide students – and anyone else who has to outfit a living space at minimal cost – with a chair, desk, bed, clothes store and wastepaper basket. All the furniture would be delivered free, and would all be contained in a box that is light enough to be moved by a single person, and all would be able to be assembled in 30 minutes with no tools.

The catch is that all the furniture is made from cardboard, however the maker, Toronto-based Our Paper Life, says that the prototypes of each element have lasted three years with no visible signs of wear. It also says that the desk and the storage units can support weights of 30kg.

The three graduate students who make up Our Paper Life previously designed cardboard beach furniture

Geoff Christou, the chief executive of Our Paper Life, told Gizmag that the hardest part of the design was to create a bed base (mattress not included). He said: “At first I wondered if it could even be done, but after a lot of testing, we ended up using the storage units with simple connector pieces. It makes for a durable bed frame and allows for extra storage space under the bed.”

The campaign is hoping to raise $185,000 by the beginning of the academic year in September; so far it has accumulated $5,936 in 10 days. And Our Paper Life says that anyone who contributes $149 will receive a free Room in a Box kit.

Add a comment

GCR welcomes lively debate, but will not publish comments that are threatening, libellous or gratuitously abusive.